Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Beyond Hypothermia / Sip si 32 dou (Hong Kong, 1996)

(Spoilers.) A lean, mean, moving, and unjustly
forgotten movie from the tail end of the Golden Age of Hong Kong bullet
ballets, Beyond Hypothermia is well
worth searching out. What makes this move particularly noteworthy, aside from
the competent direction by former John Woo assistant director Patrick Leung,
the top-notch editing, and the tight story, is that it manages to merge both
what one expects from a multi-violent, blood-drenched Hong Kong killer flick
with a surprisingly non-maudlin but touching love story. That it should end
tragically is, of course, expected, but that the movie as a whole should be so
effective, so successful, is not.

Opening with a
bruised and bloody hand reaching for a bullet, the scene initially seems to
have nothing with the narrative that follows, but by the end of the movie the
circle closes and everything suddenly makes sense — tragic sense. There is no
hope, there is no love, and there is no future for killers; and whether driven
by a desire of vengeance or by not knowing anything else in life, the final
result is the same: you not only kill your darlings, but die yourself.

The plot
concerns a nameless hitwoman (the beautiful Jacklyn Wu), raised without a past
by her "aunt" as a soulless killer whose cold actions are mirrored by
her unnaturally low body temperature. She is less a human than an empty shell
and a killing machine, but buried beneath the skin of the literally cold-blooded
professional, the longing and desire for love and human companionship struggle
to become free. A lonely woman lacking both a past and a future and in need of male companionship, she is slowly
warmed by the delicious noodle soup made by the slightly thick-headed,
friendly, and equally lonely man (Sean Lau, of Return to a Better Tomorrow
[1994 / kill count]
andBlack Mask [1996 / trailer])
running the noodle stand across from where she lives. He dubs her "Pretty
Ghost" due to her beauty and the way she appears and disappears without
warning, and slowly an affectionate relationship develops between them. But
the successful completion of a hit in Korea causes that now-dead man's
bodyguard (Sang Woo Han) to go off the deep end. He
leaves a long, bloody trail of (intentionally and unintentionally) dead bodies as
he slowly hones in on the mysterious woman who killed his boss, losing more
than just the little humanity he had in the process. In that sense, he is the
reverse of "Pretty Ghost": as she warms and thaws out, becoming ever-more
human, he becomes ever-more bloodthirsty and cold, soulless, and irredeemable — something
he realizes himself in the final scene.

In all truth,
were the two core narrative threads of Beyond
Hypothermia — a relatively kitschy love story and a blood-drenched
shoot-'em-up flick — separated, neither would be all that impressive despite
all the stylistic panache and flash of the presentation. What makes Beyond Hypothermia so special is that
it manages to follow the templates of the two genres so closely while achieving
a balance that both works without seeming trite and that also gets the viewer
solidly involved with the narrative and characters, to the point of even caring
for the figures (or at least the two lonely leads).

The technical
finesse of Leung's camerawork and staging matches well with the
don't-waste-time screenplay by Roy Szeto (whose
other projects include, among others, The fun kung fu
zombie political parable We're Going to Eat You [1980 / trailer],the dead-horse-floggingA
Chinese Ghost Story III [1991 / trailer], the disappointing The Assassin
[1993], the intriguing The Phantom Lover[1995 / trailer] and the trashily fun Mutant City
[1992 / trailer]).
What truly carries the movie, however, and what truly helps make Beyond Hypothermia transcend being
simply another flashy, well-made Hong Kong spectacle of flying dead bodies, are
the two leads.

Both Wu and Lau
are amazing in their respective extremely sketchy roles and manage to make
their characters both more rounded and sympathetic than the extremely linear
and low-fat script should allow. Wu manages to go from a convincingly heartless
professional killer to a woman in doubt to a woman suddenly feeling moments of
joy (probably for the first time in her life) with her facial expressions and body
language alone, and as a result she makes a killer (so cold-blooded that she
barely pauses when killing a child) likeable and an object of the viewer's
interest and affection. Lau does likewise, presenting himself as a not-too-bright
but extremely engaging man whose heart and love goes out to a mysterious woman,
and who does everything possible to catch her interest. By the end of the
movie, the viewer really wishes that the two would, could, somehow, ride off
into the sunset. Instead, we get a massive shootout, an almost nihilistic last
line (from Lau) that literally hurts in its irony, and a sad finale that even leaves
even a room full of beer-swilling dudes silent.

True, some
aspects (like how weapons are delivered to the heroine) occasionally instigate
giggles in their inanity, but one is given little time to mull over such things;
they are, in the end, perfunctory aspects that must be resolved quickly to get
to the given point of the scene: that the killer is a perfect killer, that she
is totally heartless, that the nemeses is introduced. And speaking of the
nemeses, Sang Woo Han is a bit one-note in his
characterization of the out-of-control, revenge-driven bodyguard, but luckily neither
his haircut nor his beady-eyed, blinkless stare do all that much damage to the
movie. The biggest flaw of Beyond
Hypothermia is without a doubt the dated synth music that swells up in
full-blooded 80s/early-90s tastelessness whenever there is a tragic or
emotional scene. It is a further credit to the film and the filmmakers that
despite be saddled with such a crappy and cheap-sounding aural nightmare, Beyond Hypothermia remains so
effective, so tragic, so stunning.

It is time that
this forgotten move was rediscovered. Give it a go: it might be the first Hong
Kong bullet ballet that your women's-film-loving other half might like.

1 comment:

Mark Baumgart
said...

Well, I recently watched this movie again after about ten years or more of not seeing it, and despite the bad dubbing, it still holds up quite well. I'd give it about an eight or nine. It's too bad the lead actress retired from movies fourteen years ago. Unlike many men, I like kick-ass babes, as long as they aren't married to me. Hong Kong cinema seems so disposable, still, there are copies for sale on Amazon, so spread the word. Keep rocking. - Mark Louis Baumgart

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About Me

An accidental ex-pat that has enjoyed the city of Berlin for over 30 years shares his extensive knowledge and personal opinions on the films that he has and still is wasting his life on by watching.
For more insight into his fabulously normal life, choose one of the blogs below that fits the topic you want to read about. And remember: it's not life that sucks, it's your life that sucks.

LOLOL funny shit! really enjoyed this. i just downloaded this movie and now I wonder — why the heck did i waste my bandwith. Ur comments are funny as hell. Do u have any comments on the recent beowulf and grendel flicks? [Anonymous (rajivness@gmail.com) @ Beowulf]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.[Graciela @ Come Back, Charleston Blue]